Explanation: What if you saw your shadow on Mars and it wasn't human? Then you might be the robotic Curiosity rover currently exploring Mars. Curiosity landed in Gale Crater last August and has been busy looking for signs of ancient running water and clues that Mars could once have harbored life. Pictured above, Curiosity has taken a wide panorama that includes its own shadow in the direction opposite the Sun. The image was taken in November from a location dubbed Point Lake, although no water presently exists there. Curiosity has already discovered several indications of dried streambeds on Mars, and is scheduled to continue its exploration by climbing nearby Mt. Sharp over the next few years.

Our thorough exploration of Mars using robotic means has already far exceeded the pre-Apollo robotic exploration of the Moon; it is very much a necessity to do so in advance of human Mars missions, which technically may (or may not) be possible per se right now. My view is that Von Braun’s risk minimizing approach is best and that this robotic exploration is rooted in that.

Von Braun’s idea of going to Mars matured into a follow-on from Apollo. He envisioned assembling the Mars mission in LEO, using a minimum of 12 Saturn V launches (IOW, the entire lunar program and a bit more, just to do one Mars mission).

If enough water were available in near-Earth orbit, using photovoltaics to turn it into hydrogen and oxygen for the fuel for Mars shots (and probably for other interplanetary missions), a big kick engine to push the manned portion of the mission to Mars and back, along with its tank, would be the rest that would be needed from Earth’s surface. The booster would have to be easy to recycle for each leg, as the work would be done in micrograv conditions, and on both ends.

Obviously for this to be feasible, there would also have to be an ample water supply near Mars as well. An automated system to gather the water, deploy photovoltaics, and accumulate the fuel and oxidizer, would have to be launched, probably in modules, to arrive, self-manage, and operate some few years prior to the crew launch. This ensures that the fuel for the return trip would be available before they set out.

This would have to be financed by asteroid mining, which would use much of the same kind of technology. Mars exploration would also have to be with a view of colonization, which IMHO is probably a nutty thing to try for the next, oh, century or so. Meanwhile, a permanent human presence in space, and in orbit around Mars in particular, would have to be established.

15
posted on 02/05/2013 7:35:31 PM PST
by SunkenCiv
(Romney would have been worse, if you're a dumb ass.)

There is a lot of material for these in the raw image gallery that they don't publish for some reason. I paid for a download of PTgui, which does a comparable job, and I can pick my subjects. Hate to say it but I missed this one! Note they have given it the "way-it-would-look-on-earth" treatment, which kind of baffles me. If you look at the Sol 106 Mastcam raw image gallery you will see the natural appearance. I read a comment from JPL saying that although they couldn't guarantee exactly how it would appear if you were there, the raw images are the way it would appear if you took cellphone pictures of it, because it is essentially the same technology.

Note they have given it the "way-it-would-look-on-earth" treatment, which kind of baffles me.

Because my eyes are adapted to the amount of light that reaches Terra, the light balance thing they do allows a human like me (seriously, I'm human, really, cooks are human) to identify objects like metamorphic rock vs. sedimenatary rock pretty easily.

In natural Mars light, I would have a tougher time identifying objects, not counting the freezing and exploding and asphyxiating thing.

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